Chapter 3 #2
“Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing? This is private property.” The man was fully dressed, thank God. But he leapt to his feet, tipping his chair like I’d walked in on him in the bathroom.
“Me?” I scuttled back, putting myself between Teddy and the rando man in my cupboard. “You have thirty seconds to explain yourself before I call the police.”
And that’s when I recognised him.
Alistair Macabe.
He looked different in this light. Less put together than when I’d seen him twenty minutes ago beneath the shadow of an umbrella. Raindrops coating his glasses.
That Alistair had led with confidence. I’m a doctor, how hard can it be? With his sharp suit and even sharper jaw. A man who knew exactly the kind of presence he exuded.
The Alistair before me now looked a little more dishevelled. Scruffed five o’clock shadow. Harried hair. Glasses slipping down his nose. But the icy eyes were the same.
“Of fucking course it’s you!” He took in me in my pink rain jacket with a sneer. Clearly, he didn’t know my name. Interesting.
Then again, after only a year, I was still new to Kinleith, by island village standards.
Ninety-five per cent of the residents had lived in one another’s pockets for generations.
Second cousins twice removed. A pet gerbil’s godparent.
That was the reason that most Skye residents didn’t even bother with online dating.
Ghosting was essentially outlawed given the extremely likely possibility you’d run into them buying bananas the next day.
Alistair didn’t exactly run in Kinleith’s social circles.
I’d only ever glimpsed him in the village from a distance, striding down the high street like he was about to land the lead in a nineties courtroom drama.
But you didn’t have to grow up in Kinleith to know all there was to know about the Macabe family.
“Language. There’s a child present,” I hissed, relaxing a little now I knew he wasn’t a psycho with an impeccable axe-wielding arm. Just the black sheep of the four Macabe siblings.
Over his shoulder, I noted the kitchen. Almost a mirror image to mine.
A stack of moving boxes were piled by the door.
The damp jumper from earlier slung over the back of a worn leather sofa.
And the pieces clicked into place. A lot quicker for me than they did for him, it seemed, because he set his feet wide. “Did you follow me here?”
“What?” He couldn’t be serious.
“Oh please, after your little ruse back there with the car and the kid, I’m right to be wary. For all I know you’re plotting to rob me blind.”
A laugh bubbled up my throat. “Wow, can you please point me in the direction of the person who dared gift you with such a monumental ego? I’d like to have a word.” It felt good, if not a little vicious. But it was the first time I’d laughed this week.
His eye twitched. “Why are you here?”
“For you, muffin.” I pressed a hand to my heart. “How quickly you dismiss our love.”
A little part of me expected him to hear the joke in my words.
To see the funny side of our less-than-ideal living conditions.
But no, his face paled. Lips that were just a little too full for his sharp face, drawing tight.
I swear I could see the images flicking through his mind.
A boiled bunny. A bathtub full of water.
Glenn Close giving the performance of a lifetime.
I had only one question: Who gave men the right?
I wanted to laugh in his face, but instead I bit my lip, gazing up at him with a silly, lovestruck expression I’d seen girls on reality dating shows make.
He stepped back, swallowing. “Typical trespasser, nothing to say for yourself. Hand over the key and we’ll call it—”
“I’m not trespassing. Jeez, I thought doctors were supposed to be smart.” Did I really have to spell it out to him? Reaching into my back pocket, I drew out my fresh set of keys, still attached to the square “Skye Rentals” chain. “I’m very clearly your neighbour.”
“Impossible.” He gave his head one determined shake. Like he couldn’t fathom a situation where he was wrong. “The rental company promised they wouldn’t lease this place given the situation—” He pointed to the door sitting between the two living rooms. “I paid extra for the privilege.”
A week ago, I’d have folded beneath that chilly stare like a stack of cards.
Right then, I didn’t have the energy to care.
I’d spent a week dividing my and my kid’s lives into boxes, without even knowing if I’d have space to store them.
Cameron would move back into our home tomorrow with my replacement in tow, and somehow, I had to go on existing in this tiny village – the one I’d been forced to move to – where the news of our break-up was probably being whispered over every dinner table.
I raised my chin. “You’ll have to take it up with the rental company.”
“Oh, believe me, I will.” His large hand gripped the edge of the doorframe.
“I’m shaking in my boots.”
That bit wasn’t a lie. Up close, Alistair was intimidating in a way that his brothers weren’t. Hawkish. Watchful. Like he knew he was the most intelligent person in any room he deigned to grace with his presence.
As a woman who’d barely scraped through school, smart people intimidated me like no other.
Feigning indifference, I rapped on the divider wall, listening to the hollow thud of thin plasterboard. “Why is there a door in the middle of the room anyway?”
He pointed to the vaulted ceiling. “The original structure used to be one property. Supposedly, it ‘adds character’. Code for: ‘The landlord is too cheap to brick it up.’”
Fantastic. “Luckily for you, Teddy and I are wonderful neighbours. We’re quiet, keep to ourselves and have plenty of sugar on hand.”
“I’m sure Ted Bundy said the same.”
I scoffed. “If anyone is making . . . serial killer” – I whispered out the side of my mouth, painfully aware of the seven-year-old at my back watching every moment of this exchange – “jokes, it should be me. You could annihilate Kinleith’s impeccable crime record in one fell swoop.”
His eyes burned into mine for a long moment, then he reached for the door handle. “Better lock the door behind me then.”
“I will.”
“Good.” With one last glance, he said, “Don’t get too comfortable in there.”
The second the door closed, I stared at it, trying to jump-start my brain the same way I would Daisy’s crappy engine.
I flicked the lock into place with a shiver, quickly dropping my hand.
It was like the door had a pulse. Somehow, I just knew he lingered on the other side, glowering at me through the wood.
I’d need to drag a bookcase across it. Maybe nail it shut.
What a weird guy. I wasn’t exactly thrilled at this living situation either, but that had definitely been an overreaction.
Turning, I found Teddy exactly where I left her. Her expression serious but unsurprised at the latest bizarre turn in her life. “Cool feature, huh?”
“Is he going to kill us?”
“Of course not,” I huffed, heading for the front door, determined to start unloading some of the boxes while the rain held off. Then paused on the threshold. “You know how to phone 999, right?”